


Smaller Gods

by arrow (esteefee)



Category: due South
Genre: Angst, April Showers Challenge, Established Relationship, Homophobia, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-10
Updated: 2008-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esteefee/pseuds/arrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If he takes Clybourn toward the 27th precinct police station he bypasses the intersection where he was thrown from the back of a van and lost his memory. He then doesn't think about how freeing it was, that short time when he wasn't himself. Except, of course, he still thinks about not thinking about it, which defeats the purpose entirely.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Smaller Gods

These things are simple: the book placed just so on the chest by his cot; his Hudson Bay blanket folded neatly at the bottom of his feet; the lantern's wick a standard one quarter-inch in length.

On Mondays and Thursdays Fraser waxes his boots; on Fridays he irons his hat. The brass of his uniform needs polishing more often in the humid heat of Chicago's summer.

Not so simple is the tangle of yearning that wakes him from murky dreams. Francesca, in black leather lingerie, is wielding, for some unknown reason, a picket post-holer. Ray is outside the window, polishing the Riviera with popcorn oil until it gleams. He smiles, and light catches the cross on his chest.

The cross is always there, both a warning and a beacon. Ray is a good man. A religious man, one who loves his family and cares for them, protects them as best he can.

Fraser protects them too, by buckling his Sam Browne and carefully aligning his lanyard. The high collar chafes against the skin where Ray scraped him with his teeth.

Fraser wears the red uniform much more, lately.

If he takes Clybourn toward the 27th precinct police station he bypasses the intersection where he was thrown from the back of a van and lost his memory. He then doesn't think about how freeing it was, that short time when he wasn't himself. Except, of course, he still thinks about not thinking about it, which defeats the purpose entirely.

When he passes the public library on Halsted he touches the paw of the lion statue standing guard so regally beside the steps. The lion reminds him of the Queen, and duty.

Yesterday, Ray said, "You should come home for dinner on Sunday night, Fraser. Mom's rolling some home-made pasta for her lasagna."

But home is dried venison softened in a stew, and chasing Diefenbaker through the woods. Home is the waterfall with the hidden cave where he once kept his most sacred objects—such as the outdated RCMP Cadet Training Handbook he'd found in the discard pile at a community book swap. He'd kept it double-bagged in plastic to protect it from the damp.

" _You will be expected to demonstrate a level of deportment—personal, professional and social—consistent with the core values of the RCMP and pride in self."  
_  
What he loved best in reading the manual, and dreaming of his future as a cadet, was how easy it was to take the same words and apply them to his daily life. Here, at last, was a rulebook, the guidelines as unstated but assumed by his grandparents, now clearly written down. If he would only follow those rules, abide by those strictures, he would be safe from self-condemnation.

Over the years, experience blurred the utility of the strictures. He handed an accused bank robber over to the authorities for prosecution, and spent years afterward suffering from doubt and self-recrimination. He blew the whistle on the man responsible for his father's murder and, as his reward, was exiled from his home.

He can't afford to lose another.

He remembers one night in a diner, poring over his father's journals and getting caught in the stories, one part of him in a deep, soundless mourning that this man—this amazing man who was his father—had been a stranger to him and always would be. There would be no further opportunities to change that, no meeting at RCMP events and a firm clap on his back; no more spontaneous visits like the time his father had swung through town during a bitter winter storm and stayed long enough to eat every last bit of Fraser's rabbit stew, grunting his thanks and using the shower before heading out on the trail again.

And the words would remain unspoken between them, all the words Fraser could never find the courage to say. The only words he had left from his father were there in those journals, in fleeting mentions of his son.

Ray had walked in then and given him no good news on the case, but he was a true mind, and a good heart, and he cared enough to try, and even told Fraser a little about his own father. Their relationship, it seemed, was not just distant, but combative, and Fraser felt sympathy for his rough friend.

Indeed, that was when they really became friends.

Here, at the intersection of Halsted and Lake, is the church where Fraser once confessed to Father Behan. Confession is a useless thing, really. The one God has less influence in his daily life than the smaller gods of duty and knowledge.

Except in this one thing.

Individuals have rights—the right to freedom, the right not to be persecuted, and the right to pursue happiness. He tells himself this over and over only to land up against the wall of perceived selfishness. He has no right to break up a family, to damage Ray's reputation. This thing between them is stunted, twisted in its growth by obligations and social stigma.

Three blocks from the precinct is a small park and another statue, this one with a plaque commemorating Eliot Ness, who had fought corruption in Chicago long before Fraser was born.

Ray likes this statue. He often brings them to eat at the pizzeria across the street and will tell Fraser stories of the Prohibition, and how Ness had refused to bend despite political pressures and assassination attempts.

Fraser touches the leg of the statue as he passes, laying his resentments as offerings at the statue's feet.

///

Ray looks up and smiles at Fraser when he enters the bullpen. Ray's grin is open, containing none of the furtive shame that clouded his eyes the night before when he slipped out of Fraser's apartment.

Suddenly, all of Fraser's charms and talismans are nothing before that brilliant, green-eyed affection.

"Fraser, my friend, you're just in time. C'mere," Ray says, and pulls him into a seat before the computer. His warm hand stays on Fraser's shoulder as he leans and points, and Fraser can smell his aftershave.

Fraser listens with half an ear and types, pulling up the information. His cheeks burn. He whips through the database, fingers flying, until he's found the photograph Ray needs.

"...Ma tried insisting, but I told her you were packing up to go on vacation, so Sunday's out, right?"

"That's right, Ray. Give Mrs. Vecchio my apologies, if you would."

"Yeah, of course, of course. So, just a couple more days, huh?" There's something in Ray's voice—a profound regret. But it can't be for Fraser's upcoming extended absence. Fraser knows this.

The photograph blurs momentarily on the screen. Fraser blinks, and bends his neck, as if in prayer.

"Yes, Ray. Just a few more days."

  
....................  
2008.06.10

**Author's Note:**

> There is no lion statue at the Daley library branch.
> 
> But there should be.


End file.
